


time's hands stop for no one

by kaeneuss



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29259795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeneuss/pseuds/kaeneuss
Summary: clips of what could have been, what had been, and what is.(mostly sylvain/ingrid-centric, but there will be some more)
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, there will be more i promise
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	time's hands stop for no one

**Author's Note:**

> a take on the black eagles route of FE3H, where ingrid gets recruited last-minute but sylvain is left behind.

The feeling of a spear in his hand, blade slicing through flesh and bone as easily as a knife cuts through warm butter, the pulse of war thrumming in his veins as constant as a heartbeat, this all carries a certain sense of familiarity to Sylvain. Fought a hundred battles and he'll fight a hundred more just as easily if it means he can preserve peace for the future of Fodlan. He's never prided himself on being a knightly person, or upholding precocious ideals of chivalry, but now he has something to protect. His Kingdom. His people. His king. Sylvain's a stubborn person, and he knows this well enough. He'll carry through his duties even if he grumbles along the way. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. That's just the kind of person he is.

But he never expected to face Ingrid on the other side of the war. Five years. Five years since the Battle of Garreg Mach and she disappeared with the Imperial forces. Five years since his outstretched hand broke away from hers and the classic green eyes he'd known so well as hers disappeared with the pound of horse hooves and the clanging of metal. Five years. She's still just as beautiful, still the same blonde hair shining as bright under the sun as strands of wheat and just as golden, eyes still green as emeralds and just as entrancing. If anything, she's only grown more beautiful since the day she disappeared. Since the day he failed. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. This applied to him, as well. No matter how many corpses he searched, no matter how long he sat in the remains of the battlefield, blood pooling in the ground in puddles of red, he couldn't find her. This was a curse and a blessing in of itself - the dream that maybe she'd lived, maybe he'd see her again. He'd wished, oh he'd wished, that if the goddess truly was watching over them from above, maybe she'd give her back to him. He regretted every second, every moment, of his weakness. His inability. So he'd trained ever harder. Fighting more battles, leading more battalions. All for the tiny spark of hope, the prayer, that Ingrid would return for him. 

(A monkey's paw, truly. He bites his tongue.) 

"Ing..."

His voice, quiet though it is, stabs through the hustle and bustle of the warground like a well-placed arrow, shaft slipping through chainmail. Their eyes meet - hazel against emerald - and something wells up in his throat. He can't tell if it's bile or if it's sheer fucking _anger_ at her, anger at her betrayal, anger that she'd disappeared without a word for five _fucking_ years and now she shows up on the _other side._ But he says none of this. Because he can't. Because when he stares at her, he doesn't see anger back. He just sees pity. And this, more than anything else, makes the hurt swell in his chest and grip ice-cold fingers against his heart. He loved her, and he still loves her, even now. He was always a doofus. An idiot. Joking around, messing around, never serious, always flaking out when the opportunity presented itself. She had always cleaned up after him and he had taken it for granted until she was gone and he realized how much she mattered to him. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Like someone had ripped out a piece of him and left a ragged, sluggishly bleeding hole where she had used to be.

(Where his heart had used to be.)

"Why?" 

His face turns into a bitter grimace. Normally, on the battlefield, Sylvain doesn't let things rattle him too hard. He isn't like Felix, who always seems to have a tiny smirk on his face whenever he clashes blades with an opponent, and certainly not like Dimitri, who looks as if he was a bear in the forest and some poor unsuspecting hunter had just tread on his tail except constantly. He just... fights. And kills. And stabs. And eviscerates. And... you get the point. But now, he can't find it in himself to stop the confusing swell of emotions in his stomach. Happiness that she was alive? Anger at her for being a traitor? Sadness that they had to fight each other? 

"Why'd you have to join them, Ing?" His voice is filled with hurt. Sounds like it, too. Sounds like someone stabbed him in the stomach and he's giving his last will kind of hurt. He winces at the very tone of it, because he sounds _weak_. "Why'd you leave the Kingdom? Why'd you leave _us_?"

"Can't you see, Sylvain? Dimitri is on a warpath. He's not going to stop until everyone in his path is dead, and he doesn't care what happens to his followers. He just wants to kill Edelgard."

"Edelgard is on a rampage, Ingrid! She's killed hundreds of innocent people - what, in the name of justice?! I can't stand by and let this happen, and neither should you!"

"She's doing this to tear down what made this whole society in the first place! Those innocent people were already starving in the streets, homeless, because they weren't blessed with Crests! Don't you remember Miklan, Sylvain?"

_Miklan_. His older brother. The one that wasn't born with a Crest, and so he had hated Sylvain. As if 'hate' could sum up 'I despise your guts so fucking much I will literally try to murder you multiple times over'. Fuck.

"Don't you dare bring him up again, Ingrid," he hisses, fist clenching around the shaft of his spear. " _Don't. You. Dare._ "

"It's true. The reason why he turned to banditry, the reason why he tried to kill you, it was because you were born with a Crest and he wasn't. Please, Sylvain, I don't want to fight you," she begs him, pleading in her tone, hope in her eyes. He's seen this expression tens of times by now. It still cuts him to the core, rattles him deep, and drags out emotions he's long since shoved out of reach and out of his mind. 

But he doesn't hesitate as he turns, raising his spear, and says, "This is war, Ingrid. It's kill or be killed."

And the battalions charge, and whatever she answers with is drowned out by the sound of horse hooves pounding and blades clashing.


End file.
